A Simple Way to Avoid Mud with Betty Franks Krause
There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the groove with your painting—only to suddenly realize you’ve created mud. You didn’t mean to. It just happened. One minute you’re layering colors, the next... everything’s dulled into a murky, lifeless brown.
And let’s be clear: this isn’t the same as mixing beautiful neutrals. Mud is its own thing. It’s usually the result of too many color mixtures, especially from opposite sides of the color wheel mixing wet into wet before you’ve had a chance to stop them.
So how do you avoid it?
Artist Betty Franks Krause (Episode 10) has a simple and effective approach for building up bright, bold, mud-free paintings.
Work One Color Temperature at a Time
Krause’s strategy starts with something foundational: color temperature.
She builds her paintings by working with one side of the color wheel at a time. For example, she might start her piece using only cool colors—purples, blues, blue-greens, and white.
As she paints, she mixes only adjacent colors (blues with purples, for instance) and keeps everything in the cool family. This intentional limitation means she’s not accidentally creating unwanted browns by mixing across the wheel.
Once she’s happy with that first layer, she lets it dry completely.
Then—and only then—she moves on to her warm colors: reds, oranges, yellows. Again, she sticks within this family, blending adjacent colors, building form and energy, but always keeping temperature families separate.
The result? Clean, vibrant layers that maintain their intensity and avoid the dreaded brown sludge of mud.
Why It Works
Colors mix easily when they’re wet. In fact, wet-into-wet is a well-known and beautiful way to work. But it’s also risky—especially when you’re mixing colors that don’t play nicely together.
Krause’s method is essentially a color management system. By separating color families and drying between layers, she controls what mixes and when. It’s a practice that keeps her paintings clear, bright, and full of intentional color harmony.
It’s also a technique that translates across mediums. Watercolorists and oil painters already do a version of this through glazing—building layers and letting each one dry before continuing.
Put it to Practice
If you’re struggling with muddy color, try this simple shift:
Choose one color family to start with—cool or warm.
Lay out only those paints, and work exclusively in that temperature. Mix within adjacent colors (like red with orange, or blue with green) to maintain brightness.
Let your layer dry completely before moving on.
When you’re ready, switch to the opposite temperature family, and repeat the process.
You can apply this approach to an entire layer of your painting—or even within specific areas of a larger piece. The key is to avoid overlapping wet complementary colors (like red and green, or blue and orange) unless that’s your intent.
This one small change might be the key to brighter, cleaner, and more confident color work in your paintings.